That's what I thought... I was just reading SW - Options in virtualization Setup and the last reply was recommending Hyper-V or VMWare (which is obviously bad advice). It amazes me how frequently it's recommended, when upon any research it's a no-brainer that the free ones are the way to go.

Though I only have extremely limited IT experience, so I didn't know if there were ever cases where it becomes the correct choice.

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

What is being described here is the requirement of high availability and I've never seen it get brought up and then ML reply with "vmware is the right solution". It'll be interesting to see the replies to this thread

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

It does.

If the host crashes? So... I have 5 VMs... the host dies.... NOW! vMotion brings them up on host2 instantly, with the exact same in memory and app running etc... no boot?

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

It does.

If the host crashes? So... I have 5 VMs... the host dies.... NOW! vMotion brings them up on host2 instantly, with the exact same in memory and app running etc... no boot?

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

It does.

If the host crashes? So... I have 5 VMs... the host dies.... NOW! vMotion brings them up on host2 instantly, with the exact same in memory and app running etc... no boot?

Correct.

Now that is a nice feature ;) didn't know that. Impressive with no shared storage. Even in windows cluster, if a node dies with a running VM, when it comes up on Node2... it boots from fresh and lost memory.

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

It does.

If the host crashes? So... I have 5 VMs... the host dies.... NOW! vMotion brings them up on host2 instantly, with the exact same in memory and app running etc... no boot?

Correct.

Now that is a nice feature ;) didn't know that. Impressive with no shared storage. Even in windows cluster, if a node dies with a running VM, when it comes up on Node2... it boots from fresh and lost memory.

So, what the price tag for vMotion?

You can research the pricing, I think it's in the $5000 range per year.

Everything I've read about vMotion (though never used it) makes it sounds like Host A would have to be up to do a live migration (hence the "Live Migration"), if host A crashed, the state would already have to be present on Host B to fail over to... no?

Everything I've read about vMotion (though never used it) makes it sounds like Host A would have to be up to do a live migration (hence the "Live Migration"), if host A crashed, the state would already have to be present on Host B to fail over to... no?

How does that make any sense? Host A has to be online to migrate a VM if Host A crashes. . . .

I absolutely need vMotion to ensure my systems are up 100% of the time, I have a server infrastructure of 3 or more hosts.

vMotion is live migration + HA? Don't know if it works with SAN or without. but for live migration at least vSAN is required for 100% uptime: share nothing live migration can't work. You can accomplish this other ways:

KVM has ovirt+gluster

hyper-v has native starwind

starwind seems to be available outside windows

Xen has HA Lizard - I think.

don't know about the setup time and labor, this could be the only discriminant. in Italy vMotion + vSAN is so expensive that I can pay for setup of other solutions and stay in budget.

Maintainance costs is probably another factor. But here others win hands down. RTO and RPO can't be discussed because this is HA.

Can you share some real cases of why you think you have to ditch others for VMWare? just curious. This has been my hypervisors week :P

The difference is that VMWare has a solution for 100% uptime with "VMware VMotion (which) enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity."

That is HA without the need for a vSAN or other Highly available storage. The hypervisor has this built in.

... isn't vMotion then exactly the same as in Hyper-V 'Move' then? I can move VMs in Hyper-V from one host, to another, without shared storage, and with 0 downtime.

vMotion sounds just like the move option in Hyper-V. Nothing special. If HostA crashes, does vMotion move the VM to another host instantly without any downtime to service and no shared storage? - Now that would be different...

It does.

If the host crashes? So... I have 5 VMs... the host dies.... NOW! vMotion brings them up on host2 instantly, with the exact same in memory and app running etc... no boot?

Correct.

Now that is a nice feature ;) didn't know that. Impressive with no shared storage. Even in windows cluster, if a node dies with a running VM, when it comes up on Node2... it boots from fresh and lost memory.

So, what the price tag for vMotion?

You can research the pricing, I think it's in the $5000 range per year.

Sorry, maybe I'm missing something... Just read this https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/vmotion.html
The host has to be up for vMotion... as in... not HA. If the host dies now, this second, the admin has not moved the machine = service unavailable. Exactly the same as Hyper-V move.

vMotion appears to copy the state of a VM from host A to host B, while keeping the VM "live", if host A crashed while running 5 VMs, as stated above, how could it fail over to host B instantaneously in the same exact state?

vMotion appears to copy the state of a VM from host A to host B, while keeping the VM "live", if host A crashed while running 5 VMs, as stated above, how could it fail over to host B instantaneously in the same exact state?

Agree. I think Dustin missed my point. vMotion offers little more than the standard move feature in the free hyper-v.

If comparing free VMWare and Hyper-V, then definitely Hyper-V... because free VMWare is almost useless compared, as it's lacking so many useful features and benefits that Hyper-V has for free.

If comparing Hyper-V Free and paid VMWare, then you get a lot more with VMWare than free Hyper-V.

If comparing Datacenter Hyper-V with System Center vs VMWare paid, then you really need to do some serious evaluating. Do you already have Datacenter? Do you already have SC?

I'm assuming not, you said new install, so lets assume no VMWare of any type, no Hyper-V of any type, no System Center, no Windows or licensing of any type... In that case, you can't be big enough at that point to really need more than the free Hyper-V.

But it depends on a lot of things, obviously. If it's all from scratch, perhaps just Hyper-V Server 2016 and a bunch of Linux VMs will do the trick. You don't really need to pay for VMWare until you have hardware that requires it, or need features that are more cost effected or more beneficial than from HYper-V Free or Hyper-V Datacenter and/or System Center. It takes a lot of work evaluating the business and what's the best fit.